


where there's desire, there's gonna be a flame

by Valkyrees



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: As is tradition, F/F, everyone is a mess, lots of sass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrees/pseuds/Valkyrees
Summary: Kara’s already having a shit day.It even started off bad – she woke up late, nearly forgot her glasses, dropped her morning bagel on the ground and spilled her coffee on her favorite shirt. And then she just fought an alien with a cold so her super-suit has weird blue gunk stuck to it from when he sneezed on her. Three times in a row.This is all to explain why, when she flies through the window of her apartment, slips out of her super-suit, turns on the light, and sees her arch-nemesis and resident evil-nerd-who-tried-to-kill-her, Lena Luthor, sitting on her couch—she barely blinks an eye.Lena, however, scowls at her in that way she does and says, “If you tell anyone I’m here, I’ll tell the world Supergirl moonlights as a second-rate reporter.”Or the one where Lena's a criminal and Kara loses every argument she tries to have.





	where there's desire, there's gonna be a flame

**Author's Note:**

> the bad guy plot is not meant to be taken seriously

Kara’s already having a shit day.

It even started off bad – she woke up late, nearly forgot her glasses, dropped her morning bagel on the ground and spilled her coffee on her favorite shirt. And then she just fought an alien with a cold so her super-suit has weird blue gunk stuck to it from when he sneezed on her. Three times in a row.

This is all to explain why, when she flies through the window of her apartment, slips out of her super-suit, turns on the light, and sees her arch-nemesis and resident evil-nerd-who-tried-to-kill-her, Lena Luthor, sitting on her couch—she barely blinks an eye.

Lena, however, scowls at her in that way she does and says, “If you tell anyone I’m here, I’ll tell the world Supergirl moonlights as a second-rate reporter.”

“Technically, a second-rate reporter moonlights as Supergirl,” Kara says, and then she goes to make herself a cup of coffee.

*

They were friends, almost. They weren’t that close really, but it still stung when Lena tried to kill her. Okay, so they were best friends, and they were really close, and maybe Kara lied to Lena the entire time about her secret identity, but it still stung when Lena tried to kill her.

“I wasn’t targeting _you._  You’re being overdramatic,” Lena practically scowls, because for some reason she feels like she’s the one with the right to be mad at _Kara_ , since she just figured out Kara’s also Supergirl. And, okay, so she’s also figuring out that maybe it’s the reason Kara’s been dodging her calls ever since the FBI put Lena on the most-wanted list, and she put Lena on her own personal most-hated list. All Lena had to do was stop targeting Supergirl, one job, and she couldn’t handle that. “I was targeting the other Kryptonian, and you were just going to be collateral.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, Lena,” Kara says, rolling her eyes and carefully holding her coffee so she doesn’t spill again. “You tried to kill me, but—you know it doesn’t even matter anymore because the government doesn’t care about me anymore.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of turning me in to get back in their good graces,” Lena says, folding her arms.

Kara blows her coffee and, since she’s distracted, miscalculates the pressure and ends up freezing it. Shit. “I literally was nowhere even close to thinking that. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to explain myself to my friend, and ask for her help.” Lena breathes in deep and furrows her brows like the indignant little turd that she is. But Kara can’t even be fully frustrated at her because having Lena in front of her again just reminds of her how damn attractive she is. Shit, again. “But clearly I don’t have any friends here.”

Whatever. “Who’s the one being overdramatic now?”

“You’ve been screening my calls.”

“I was breaking up with you because you tried to kill me,” Kara explains.

“Clearly you’re terrible at relationships,” Lena says, very seriously, “which is probably why you can’t keep a man.”

Which, low blow, but okay. Kara rolls with the punches for a living. “Lena, I—what? You—I. That’s not true.” Nevermind, she’s shit at arguments. “ _Why_ are you here?”

“Some mad scientist is teaming up with some weird alien, and together they’re going to unleash an airborne virus. Also, I need a place to stay because I may be on their bad side.” Lena’s eyes widen, like somehow telling Kara she’s in deep in more messed up crap is too vulnerable for her. “And I figured Kara Danvers is a nobody, so no one would think to look for me here.”

There it is. Kara hopes she feels better after that one. “Sure, whatever. You can stay on the couch. I don’t want to keep fighting about it.”

“This wasn’t a fight, this—”

“Lena,” Kara says firmly, and Lena seems to take the hint. “What all do you know?”

Lena knows a lot, apparently, so on top of her terribly shitty day, she has a terribly long night. And she can’t stop staring at Lena’s lips.

*

“She’s on my couch, and I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, but I might just maul her.”

“Slow down,” J’onn says, but Alex pulls a face and tilts her head like it’s not altogether a bad idea. “Alex, we’re not entertaining that. Kara, tell us about the virus.”

“Lots of science, seems bad,” Kara says, shrugging. “I just want to punch things. Like Lena. I want to punch Lena.”

Alex nods, and J’onn steps between them like they’re misbehaving children. “Focus, Kara.”

Right, there’s a bad guy and a bad alien out there. And a bad girl in her house, but that’s not the focus of this meeting. “Lena can’t be the public head of L-Corp, obviously, since she’s a hardened criminal. But it turns out she’s having a hard time being the invisible head. So she was looking for something she won’t tell me about on the black-market, unsurprisingly, and she came across some interesting posts. She nearly got caught investigating it, though. Now she’s on my couch.”

“She got far enough to figure out the alien virus plot, though?” Alex asks. “She’s valuable to us. I’m with J’onn now, no punching.”

Fine, that’s fine. “Yeah, we think we might even have a motive. The virus she told me about reminds me of something I’ve seen on Krypton before. It was a terrible disease, but something we have a cure for. If it was released on earth and and these guys had a cure—”

“They’d make a fortune,” Alex continues. “Alright, we need to stop this before anyone gets hurt.”

They all agree, and then they just stare at each other for a while, because they’re in the backroom of a bar with literally zero resources and two super-aliens that are pretty much useless without anything further to go on.

And, well. They don’t really have anything further to go on, or a place for Kara to be, so Kara resorts to circling the city and picking up on whatever crime she can with her super-hearing. Unfortunately, it’s a slow day, so she has to resort to brooding on a roof-top. Like she’s Batman. Or Spider-Man. Or any of the hero _Mans_ who do that because they don’t have shit else to do since their lives are crumbling.

Her life is crumbling.

Or, she’s just being overdramatic and Lena’s actually right.

Crap, she hates that conclusion. Brooding on a rooftop sucks. She’d rather brood on her couch watching Netflix, even if it means seeing Lena’s very, very attractive and infuriating face for the next few hours.

*

When she gets home, Lena’s on Kara’s laptop, on Kara’s couch, wearing Kara’s bathrobe (and apparently nothing else, since Kara can see the skin between her breasts when she shifts to look Kara in the eyes).

“Why are you naked on my couch?” Kara starts with.

Lena’s as nonchalant as she always is, which is annoying and endearing at the same time. “None of your clothes fit, you’re built like a middle school boy.”

Holy hell, Kara cannot put up with this. “Fine, but all I’m getting you are Walmart sweat-pants and ugly sweaters.”

“That’s tacky and makes me like you even less,” Lena deadpans.

Kara gasps loud enough for Lena to laugh at her. She’s not losing another argument, no. “You could just go back out there, get killed by some angry virus-wielding guys. I don’t care.”

She does care, a little bit, she doesn’t actually want Lena to get hurt. Ever. But, that’s beside the point.

Take that, L _ena_.

Lena does take that, surprisingly. “Fine, the clothes are acceptable. And I don’t like you less. I’m just a little irritated.”

“Oh.” Now Kara feels like an asshole. But she’s not going to poke the bear and ask why Lena’s irritated. It’s obviously Kara, who’s obviously bad at these mini-fights. So she awkwardly changes the subject. “So, uh, whatcha up to? Figure out anything new?”

“Your internet is slower than dial-up,” Lena says, and Kara opens her mouth for a defense, but Lena continues too fast. “But I got a location for a meeting that might be going on tomorrow. Had to use some sketchy connects—which I’m not proud of, before you interject—but it’s a solid lead.”

Kara walks over to sit next to Lena as she pulls something up on the laptop, and she hates that the first thing she notices is that Lena used her shampoo. She hates that she’s oddly attracted to that. Whatever. “I can crash it, if that seems like a good idea.”

She hates that she’s suddenly self-conscious, and she hates that she’s a thousand-percent aware that Lena is infinitely smarter than her and better at making plans.

“I need you to crash it in a way, like using your super-hearing for intel. Don’t beat anyone up or show yourself, they’ll know you’re on to them.”

“Okay,” Kara says. That seems like a reasonable plan. “I told J’onn and Alex. They’re helping out.”

“About this or about me?”

“Both.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t run to the government,” Lena sighs, like she’s genuinely disappointed.

“I didn’t lie,” Kara says, “they’re excommunicated too. We’re all rogue now. Just a bunch of criminals following a worse criminal to save the world.”

“You can write a shitty article about that too,” Lena grumbles. “Maybe you’d actually establish a decent career.”

Wow, okay. “So, you’re just going to be crappy to me this whole time?”

“You wrote an article in a magazine that I own about me being a bad person. And, you just called me a worse criminal.”

“Obviously, your logic is off,” Kara says, nudging Lena’s hand and nearly getting distracted by her warm, soft skin, “I was referring to myself. I’m the clear leader of this team. Everyone is following me.”

Lena drops her defenses for like, one single second, and Kara nearly relaxes before Lena says, “Don’t be nice to me. I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to like you.” Lena shuts the laptop, then, and storms off toward the bathroom.

And Kara’s stuck with her mouth open on the couch trying to figure out what the hell that means. After five minutes of looking like a gaping idiot she heads to Walmart for clothes. She nearly picks Lena out something decent, but second guesses herself since that might fall in the category of nice, and ends up buying the sweats and ugly sweaters to maintain peace.

*

Kara hasn’t been like, depressed, or anything. She’s just felt like these past few weeks she didn’t have anything to do or a real place to be. Without super-computers and surveillance and the world’s best technology guesstimating when the next crime will be committed, or government resources to tell her which known criminals are on the move again, she’s basically had to resort to bottom scraping. Like pursuing McDonald’s robberies, Waffle House fights, and identity theft (since someone stole her credit card and spent 86 dollars at Chipotle, and she thought it was pertinent for her to personally find them and ask what the actual hell they bought). 

So she’s just a little bit excited to finally be in the know again, to finally be working on something big.

Lena immediately picks up on it as Kara’s excitedly chatting to her through her comm device about everything she’s overhearing at the meeting.

“You’ve been desperate for some action, I see,” Lena says, and Kara doesn’t miss the double-knock at her sexual life. Or maybe she just _wants_ Lena to be thinking about her sexual life.

And now she’s distracted and missed a whole sentence. Hopefully it wasn’t something important, like tomorrow’s meeting place.

She’ll just pretend Lena said nothing, since she can’t lose an argument she doesn’t engage in. “Yeah, yeah. So, now he’s telling the guy he has a sample in the box. Think he’s gonna release it in a rat tank to demonstrate.”

“Idiots,” Lena mumbles. “That’s hardly secure, hopefully they all just die.”

“Nope, they won’t,” Kara says. “He says he’s got protective masks in his trunk, just in case it gets out and whatnot.”

“Can you see through?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been flying overhead, I’ll have to get a little bit closer.”

“Get closer now, and give me a time from when he puts it in the tank, to when the rat dies. It’ll take a shorter amount of time since rats are so small, but it can help me calculate the time to kill humans.”

“Right,” Kara says. Lena’s so good at all this science stuff. Too bad she’s bad. “Yeah, I’ll get the time.” She does. “It’s like thirty-seconds, maybe.”

“That’s not good,” Lena comments, like maybe it was good before and now it’s suddenly not. “What are they saying?”

“Typical bad guy stuff. Like, this _is_ good, perfect even, asking for a price.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-million and it’s theirs.”

“Do they have it?”

“They have it, in suit-cases, in fact. I think—” Kara hears the drone too late and something pierces her skin. “Crap, Lena. I’m hurt.”

And she _is_ hurt, much to her surprise. The bullet stings through her shoulder, fiery and sharp like she’s being pierced with a thousand needles simultaneously.

It takes about five seconds for the real pain to start, for the burning sensation to set in—a rippling, searing pain that initiates in her shoulder and rolls down her arm and into her neck and into her throat, so intense she gags and then her chest heaves and her arm goes limp and suddenly she's crashing fast to the ground because she can't hold herself up or fly anymore. The sun feels hot and uncomfortable on her body as she falls through the air, her mind racing through a billion scenarios in which she dies violently.

It’s all so overwhelming, the pain and the fear and the frenzy of it all, that she loses consciousness before she even touches the ground.

 

She wakes up in the backroom of the bar to J’onn staring at her and Lena looking concerned in a red-and-black cat sweater. She’s alive, then.

“What the crap?” is the first thing she asks.

“Kryptonite bullet,” Lena says. “L-Corp manufactured, probably. They expected you.”

Kara glares at Lena. No way this is a coincidence. So she’s back to trying to kill Supergirl again. Fun.

“It wasn’t Lena,” Alex, of all people, says. “She got J’onn to you fast. I, uh, as much as I hate to say it, I think she’s on our side this time.”

This time. Maybe.

“We need to figure out what they’re planning next,” Kara says. “I don’t think they specifically knew I’d be there, just contingency. They were talking valuable info and it’s no secret I can hear through walls.”

“They’ll be more cautious, but the sale looks like they’re pinning it on other criminals for releasing it, so they’ll be the heroes with the cure,” Lena says, careful, like she’s on thin ice. “I have money that isn’t tied up in L-Corp. I think it’s time we invested in better technology. And—” She pauses for a long while, just staring at Kara. “Be more careful, Supergirl. We don’t have access to the resources we had before, so no solar-lamps or anything you’d need if you got hurt.”

 _Be more careful_. Sure, okay. Kara should snap back, _maybe don’t invent Kryptonite and leave it in the hands of guys at L-Corp who might fraternize with criminals_.

But Lena’s on their side, she’s won everyone over and Kara would just look paranoid. Which she isn’t, by the way.

“Yeah, of course. I’m not as ecstatic about dying as some people are about killing me.”

She couldn’t help herself, really, but she’s rewarded by Lena glaring at her so hard that J’onn and Alex leave the room to get drinks. “We need to work together, Supergirl.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Kara mumbles. “Effects of being shot?”

Lena rolls her eyes up and huffs. “Fine. We don’t have to like each other, but we should maybe try to get along. I’ve been a jerk too.”

Understatement of the year. Kara plays along, though. “Fine with me. I could, um, get you a drink then. Since you can’t show your face and all that.”

“Lovely, thanks.”

Except they make it through a whopping half-hour before Lena’s being cold towards her again.

At least she’s not saying mean things anymore.

*

“I can find better coffee than this in prison workrooms,” Lena says, as a greeting the next morning in Kara’s kitchen, looking at Kara’s Keurig in disgust. So much for civility. “Sorry, not a knock at you, I just. I didn’t sleep well.”

Lena’s wearing a navy sweater with glitter snowflake appliqués plastered all over it, and for some Rao-damn reason she looks adorable in it. And she _does_ look tired, too tired, like she spent the night thinking about something heavy. Kara won’t get sucked into that, though. She can’t go back to having feelings for someone that would murder her in a heartbeat.

“Bad girl thoughts keeping you up?” she asks, on purpose, then adds, “Sorry, not a knock at you, I’m just bitter over nearly being murdered.”

Lena lets her have that one. “I have some equipment coming in today, and an associate got back to me this morning. Apparently the idiot that bought the virus yesterday can’t keep his mouth shut.”

Great, maybe Kara can beat up on some bad guys and get her mind off Lena. “Where do you need me?”

“Nowhere, right now,” Lena says. “He has an event scheduled a few days from now, so there’s a little bit of downtime. Enough for you to build your strength back up.”

She motions at Kara’s slacking shoulder, and Kara straightens up to hide the twinge of pain she’s still feeling.

“I’m ready to fight whenever,” Kara says, as if Lena just personally attacked her. She’s being overdramatic again. Shit. “Just let me know when the drama’s going down, and I’ll be there. I’m going to patrol the city. There’s food in the fridge and dial-up WiFi if you get bored.”

She actually manages to find some action in the city today. Some guy chops off another guys hand to steal a case of diamonds, and Kara catches the guy _and_  turns the hand in. Which should be a heroic act, except both the federal officers and local officers tell her they’ll let her know when they need her, and that she caused too much of a scene and too much damage in the rescue.

It’s like she’s back to where she started when she no longer has the government backing her. And she’s also back to brooding on a rooftop, since Netflix isn’t working for her anymore.

So, she’s feeling the full effects of her loneliness and life as an outcast, is her excuse for why she nearly smiles when Lena calls her. “Hey what’s up?”

“Saw you on TV, just wanted to call and say they’re assholes for making you seem like the bad guy.”

“Thanks, nothing new,” Kara says, and sucks her lip into her mouth to chew on it. She shouldn’t be smiling, maybe. “You didn’t have to call. We’re not being nice to each other, I remembered. Just cordial for the mission.”

“Right,” Lena says, “Well, I. I guess I’m going stir-crazy alone in this apartment.”

“Better than dying,” Kara comments.

“Sure. I can go, then.”

“Do you regret it,” Kara asks, “trying to kill me, I mean? Do you regret that?”

“It was the right decision,” Lena says, and hangs up.

What the actual f—whatever. Kara isn’t going to think about Lena anymore. Sure, Lena was her best friend and she maybe, a little, itty-bitty bit had minor feelings for her in a romantic way before things hit the fan. But those are gone now. Sure as shit.

She waits until she’s sure Lena’s asleep before she flies back into the apartment.

Which means it’s late as all hell when she gets in bed, and she practically collapses from how tired she is.

She dreams about Lena. They’re in bed together, naked and sweaty and flushed all over with a warm glow. Lena’s fingers are trailing along her sides, over her breasts, pinching her nipples. Lena’s tongue is teasing along her neck, her teeth sharp when she bites down against Kara’s pulse. Kara feels so happy, like she’s floating, like she might explode into rays of sunlight. She feels desperation curling inside of her, wants all of Lena, wants her now.

And Lena’s pressing in and shifting slowly against Kara’s side like she wants Kara too, wants it bad.

So Kara pulls Lena on top of her, gets a hand under Lena as she straddles Kara’s waist, and Lena rides her fingers until she comes. She grinds down hard on Kara as Kara bucks her hips up, the air in the room becoming thick and stuffy with desire.

Lena looks perfect, hair frumpled and messy, eyes big and green and – crap. It starts to fade. Kara can feel it fading away. No. She shakes her head to get it back, but it’s too late. It’s already gone.

She wakes up with her heart pounding, her lips tender, every neuron in her body firing off as she gasps for air. Of course she’s alone in her bed and Lena’s alone on the couch. Of course Kara’s a freaking mess. Kara squeezes her eyes shut and tries to steady her breathing, tries to get her mind to focus on something else, tries to release the tension still building in her abdomen. But her body keeps betraying her.

There’s an ache between her legs, one she can’t ignore, a heat growing so intense it’s making her head swirl. She could take care of it, maybe, but she’d spend the entire time thinking about Lena and there’s something about that fact that seems wholly pathetic to her. So pathetic she almost wants to scream with the frustration.

Why does Lena have to be so frustrating? Why did she have to target Kara and not give a single shit about it, and then show up in her living room being a hero and saving lives and complicating Kara’s feelings. She’s not even on Kara’s most hated list anymore, isn’t the black-and-white villain Kara made her out to be since the attack. She’s just a person that made a decision and she’s sticking by it and it makes Kara angry that she won’t, like.

It makes her angry that Lena won’t just admit she was wrong.

Lena never admits when she’s wrong.

Kara sighs so loud she blushes when she remembers she’s not alone in her apartment. Then she slips back in her super-suit so she can go back to brooding on a rooftop for the rest of the night.

*

In fact, she stays out the entirety of the next day, and doesn’t return home until nightfall, where she finds Lena making pasta in her kitchen. She’s wearing the gold, fuzzy sweater now. The one with little fur-balls attached that Kara knew would be too scratchy but got it anyway.

She still looks cute, and Kara’s heart is still conflicted.

And fudge it, she’s spent an inordinate amount of time frustrated over Lena, and now she’s avoiding her favorite place in the world—her couch—because of Lena, so Kara figures she’s got nothing to lose by just opening up to Lena about everything she’s feeling.

Which means she’s awkwardly standing at the kitchen counter for five minutes before she speaks or Lena acknowledges her.

“I know I didn’t tell you that I was Supergirl,” she says out of nowhere. Lena doesn’t even flinch. “But it still sucks that you sent something that would kill me and didn’t think twice about it. Even now, you won’t admit it was bad. And you know I’m me.”

“I told you,” Lena says. “I was targeting the other Kryptonian, you just would have died as well.”

“And I told you that doesn’t make it better,” Kara pleads.

Lena puts down her stirring spoon and turns to face Kara. “I was targeting her because it looked like you were going to lose, and if you did, thousands of people were going to die.”

“So, what? You were just going to sacrifice me to save thousands of—” Oh, well, when she puts it that way.

“I wouldn’t have been happy about it, if it makes a difference.”

It does, actually. “It’s not—It wasn’t a bad plan, I guess. _If_ I was going to lose. But I wasn’t going to, and I told you to trust me. I got the upperhand, and your plan nearly jeopardized everything at the last minute.”

“You’re stronger than I trusted you to be, you’re right” Lena admits, like it pains her. “And. I just. You know, this whole time I’ve convinced myself that I was in the right. We didn’t know if you’d win and this was our one chance to have a clean shot at her. I told myself, even if everyone hated me for attacking Supergirl, I did the right thing. I could sleep at night. And then I came here and found out Supergirl and Kara are the same person and suddenly my whole world’s been flipped on its head. Because, for some reason, I’m no longer able to convince myself that saving thousands of lives is worth sacrificing you, sacrificing my friend Kara. I can’t stop thinking that I almost killed _you_.”

Shit, now Kara’s heart is fluttering and her brain is short-circuiting at the worst possible time. No one’s ever told her so blatantly they’d sacrifice thousands of lives just to keep her around. And like, actually would do it because they’re an evil-genius-heiress. It’s oddly romantic.

Like, it feels a little bit like _love_.

Which is why Kara miss-thinks it’s okay to say, “Well, I can’t stop thinking about you bending me over the kitchen counter, so we both have things that keep us up at night,” because not only is she shit at arguments, she’s shit at possible love confessions. “I mean—”

“I think I know what you mean,” Lena says, but she’s looking at Kara like Kara just stabbed a knife into her boob and pulled out a breast-implant. Like she just did something straight out of _Scary Movie_. “Little forward, just a little bit.”

“I, uh.” Um. Oh, Rao, she literally just said that. Okay. “Sacrifice me. It’s worth it. I’d be happy if you did. Don’t keep me around. You can go back to sleeping at night.”

“I don’t have any reason to anymore, since the threat is over. And all that.”

“Hypothetically, I meant.”

“Right,” Lena says, smiling in a surprising turn of events. “Wasn’t sure since your cheeks are redder than the bottom of my Louboutin’s. Thought that was your version of _kill me now_.”

“I mean, sexual frustration takes the cake over intense love infatuation for embarrassment. I think.”

“So you said that to save me from feeling embarrassed?” Lena snorts. “No one said anything about love. Your articles are just the highlight of my week. It’d be like if your favorite YouTuber fell off the face of the Earth. Or died suddenly, by your own hands.”

Which is a love confession, if Kara’s ever heard one. “So the illustrious Lena Luthor can’t get through her week without the work of some second-rate reporter. Tell me again you don’t love me.”

“I don’t love you,” Lena says.

And then Kara steps close enough to be all up in Lena’s space, and Lena steps closer, instead of further away, so she’s inches away from kissing Kara. And they nearly _do_ kiss, except –

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Lena says suddenly.

Then she goes back to making pasta.

If Kara were a guy, her boner would be sticking through her pants right now. But, since she’s not, Lena probably can’t even notice how much she’s frustrating Kara. Maybe, actually, probably it _is_ a bad idea, though. Like, Kara’s sure there are reasons for them not working out together. She can’t think of them right now, but they’re probably there. Lena’s smarter than her, she’s probably thought of them.

The pasta is amazing.

Kara has another wet dream.

*

Then she spends the next day and a half avoiding Lena as much as possible, because that moment in the kitchen was awkward, tense and heartfelt and funny (for a second) and then awkward all over again. And Kara doesn’t know what to make of it, so she just makes everything even more awkward with her awkward avoidance. And yes this situation is worthy of saying the word awkward too many times and not using enough commas, because that’s just what this is.

Anyway, it results in Lena being awkward awkward awkward (which, devastatingly isn’t like buffalo and makes a real sentence if you say it enough times) and silent on Kara’s comms as she stakes out the bad-guy event in her Kara-the-reporter disguise.

Awkward like Lena saying, “Um, don’t mean to bother you, but I’m texting a list of possible guys to watch out for. I took your description and tried to match them to criminals in the system. That’s all, sorry. Can go back to working.”

Awkward like Kara responding, “Thanks, no bother. You can, uh, talk if you like to.”

Awkward like Lena not saying anything after that.

So the bad guy event is actually just a completely innocuous fundraiser.

A fundraiser that, non-innocuously, attracted every elite official in the city.

It takes Kara a few minutes of looking around and chatting before she comments, “They _have_ to be releasing it here. Tonight. I need to find him.”

Lena devises a plan, including detailing the blueprints of the building to Kara. She’s super formal about it, only talking when she needs to, leaving Kara to circle the party and sneak off into rooms with only her own thoughts to consider. It gets worse each time she enters a rooms that turns out to be a dead end, because she wishes Lena would at least talk her through the plan they both know as she goes along, just to make small-talk. Just so Kara isn’t bored out of her mind and forced to ruminate on all of her unpleasant thoughts and feelings about Lena.

She’s on door number seven and thinking about the fact that she doesn’t actually mind Lena living with her, when she’s saved by screaming coming from the ballroom.

Turns out finding the bad guy is surprisingly easy since he’s an idiot, and the outside doors lock and the vents close and there’s only one guy in a mask inciting panic at the top of the stair case announcing that everyone in the room is going to die as he unleashes a brown gas.

The next bit happens in just a few minutes.

Kara switches into her Supergirl suit surreptitiously, sucks the gas in, flies outside the planet, releases it in space, and then goes back to make sure the bad guys get properly arrested.

Then Lena says, “There are multiple attacks.”

Then Lena says, “Shit, are you infected?”

Then Kara says, “No, Kryptonian vaccinations,” and flies off to crash another bad guy party. Which, in hindsight, should have been an obvious plot-twist since the bad guys knew Supergirl crashed their meeting.

The second bad guy is even easier to stop, since he’s on his way to the big reveal and release, and all Kara has to do is punch him hard enough to make him drop the suit-case, then tie him up and fly out of there.

The third and fourth bad guy are less easy, but all in all no one gets infected and Kara only has to fly out of the planet twice.

Lena takes care of the scientist and the alien by anonymously implicating them with hard evidence to the authorities, who are on high alert after the mass-panic over four near-biodiasters.

The real hard part is Supergirl, Alex, and J’onn making up fake stories and explaining to federal officers how they got this information, how they knew about the whole plot, how they were able to route them to the people behind all of this and confirm the anonymous tip they received, and why the hell they didn’t tell authorities about any of this.

Which, ironically, makes Kara feel how Lena must have felt when they made her explain why she didn’t give valuable information to the authorities – she figured she could handle it on her own.

And then it occurs to Kara that Lena basically apologized for her actions, and Kara hasn’t said much of anything to explain herself.

The real, actual hard part is realizing Lena’s going to leave her couch now that she’s no longer in danger and she can go back to buying unknown things on the black-market and being a semi-sketch but ultimately well-meaning scientist in peace.

Kara sulks as she flies back home that night because she’s convinced she maybe messed up this situation with Lena and they spent way too much time being mad and snappy and tense with each other. But she’s happily surprised to find Lena in her kitchen, drinking Kara’s bad coffee and staring at the window like she’s been waiting a while just for Kara to show up.

“Surprised you came home,” Lena says, like it’s their shared apartment and they’ve been married forty-eight years.

“I missed you?” Kara half says, half asks, and then admits, “I honestly thought you’d maybe be gone by now.”

“Oh.” Lena freezes. “I mean, I can—”

“No,” Kara jumps in. “It was a sad thought. I was sad that maybe you’d already left.”

“I was going to leave,” Lena says, putting her cup on the counter and walking to join Kara in the living room. “But I thought it’d be a little rude, you know, without first asking if you still wanted to be bent over the counter.”

Kara’s so caught off guard she snorts instead of saying anything. Very attractive. “I have a speech. Like, an I’m sorry I’ve been overdramatic and haven’t heard you out until now speech. Also an I’m sorry for never telling you I’m Supergirl speech.”

Lena nods. “Those were both very good speeches. Thank you for sharing them with me.”

“There were other words in the speeches,” Kara whispers, because her throat is dry now. Because Lena is close enough to her that they’re sharing the same heat. “Like that I like you and I can’t figure out why us kissing is a bad idea.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Lena says, and then she kisses Kara.

It’s not even that sudden, or that unexpected, the kiss is obviously what Lena intended since she asked about sex and kept getting closer to Kara—but Kara freezes and for a brief second it’s maybe the least sexy kiss she’s ever done in her life since it’s mostly Lena smashing against her mouth. But then she gets it together, presses in closer and tangles one hand in Lena’s hair and the other in her pink and white and yellow fringe hem sweater (the, possibly, ugliest one yet) and kisses Lena like she means it.

Because she does mean it, if any of this past week of shittiness has told her anything about herself.

Then Lena pulls away from her, and Kara’s too needy to let her get far or breathe or speak or _rethink all of this holy shit this actually ended happy_ , so she pushes Lena down on the couch and climbs on top of her to kiss her hard and passionate and entirely too desperate. Which seems to be working out just fine for her, because Lena’s next move is to flip them over and straddle Kara’s waist as she lifts her shirt above her head and tosses it on the floor.

And then Kara’s mind short-circuits a second time and she miss-thinks it’s okay to say, “I had this sex dream about you, actually, and we did this thing. Oh, crap. That’s weird, I didn’t mean—”

Lena interrupts her by shifting her hips against Kara and laughing. “What do you want me to do?”

Right. Kara swallows. “Ride me? My fingers, I mean. On top of me, just like this. If you want.”

And then Lena says, “Sure,” and presses her shoulders down.

 

**Author's Note:**

> also im on tumblr: [here](https://valkyrieskwad.tumblr.com/)


End file.
